Friends and Juice
by CSIfreak89
Summary: A high school girl is found dead on the shore of a river near her school. The CSI's have to find out how she got there. COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: There are no words to describe this fic. The first part is something that really happened to me, only I didn't die (duh). **

**Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or the CSI characters that would be cool if I did though…**

Brittni and Elizabeth had both just taken a math final, thankful that it was over they decided to walk downtown.

"Where'd Kara go?" Brittni asked. They were supposed to walk with Kara, their friend, but had left the building without her.

"I don't know, she's slow." Elizabeth laughed. "Just keep going".

Brittni raised her eyebrows and shrugged. They walked to the corner and turned in the direction of the bridge. Deciding she was thirsty, Brittni took out her apple juice, tipped her head back and took a drink. Realizing she had walked off the sidewalk she said "Whoa!" and laughed.

Elizabeth just hadto make fun of her horrible coordination. "Ew, shut up!" Brittni said laughing.

5 HOURS LATER

Grissom and Sara arrived at the Las Vegas High School just as the sun was going down. Three cop cars were already there, blue and red lights flashing silently. Work lights lit up a river.

They both climbed out of the Tahoe, grabbed their kits and walked over to where Brass was waiting for them, behind the yellow tape.

"Dead high school girl" he said pointing down the river. "Coroner's already taken the body. No ID on her, and no witnesses to speak of."

"None?" Sara asked, surprised that in a high school this big there was nobody that saw what happened.

"Testing days, students only come in if they have a test," he explained. "Have fun getting down there" he said referring to the steep riverbank.

"Looks like fun" Sara said, thankful that she'd worn flat sneakers today, not that she was much of a high heel type of girl anyway.

"Shall we?" Grissom asked.

"Let's do it," she said taking off her sweatshirt. "You can go first" She smiled. " If I trip you'll break my fall"

They began the hike down, side by side. Grissom decided that he didn't want to be pushed down the riverbank by a falling Sara. He didn't want her to fall either, so he took her hand to make sure she didn't.

They finally reached the bottom, where Brass has told them the body had been, on the shore of the river on several large rocks.

"Backpack" Sara said, walking closer to the bridge to get it. She set her kit down and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. The backpack was a navy blue and light blue school bag with two compartments. The bag was only a little wet from the river, but it had been lying mostly on the rocks presumably nearthe areathe body had been.

She carefully opened the front pocket, in search for an ID. She pulled out a black wallet and read from the school ID card 'Brittni Elane'.

Putting it back into the bag she placed the whole backpack into a large evidence bag and said to Grissom "Vic's name is Brittni Elane"

"I found a lot of trash. I got a lunch tray, empty bag of chips, plastic bag, a soda can, plastic bottle of apple juice, and somebody's gym shorts."

"Somebody doesn't like gym class very much" she said, raising an eyebrow.

They continued looking for, well anything, until they were both satisfied that they hadn't missed anything.

"I think that's everything down here," Grissom said.

Sara stared up the riverbank, "this is so not going to be fun" she thought out loud.

After a difficult hike up with their kits and they evidence they had bagged they decided to dust the railing for prints. The railing was partially blocking the pathway down to the river, but still left a wide space to go down before the trees began.

They found few prints in the middle of the railing and more to the left and right.

"Think she flipped over it?" Grissom asked.

"Could be" Sara said taking pictures of the irregular pattern.

Grissom lifted the prints and tucked them inside his kit while Sara continued taking pictures of the overall scene.

An hour later they loaded everything into the Tahoe and headed back to the lab.

**TBC? you tell me.**


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update this. Please review.

Sara and Grissom decided to go to the morgue when they got back. Doc. Robbins was all ready for them, the girl's lifeless body lying on a slab in front of him. She was a petite brunette with braces and pale skin lightly tanned by the summer sun.

"Cause of death?" Grissom asked, getting to business.

"The fall killed her. Nothing more to it than that"

"Yeh, but was it an accident or was she pushed?" Sara wondered out loud.

"That I can't tell you. But what I can tell you is that she was in excellent health."

"Have you notified the parents?" Grissom wondered.

"Yes. They seemed pretty broken up." He said grimly, replaying the scene in his head. He was there everyday when families found out their children, mothers, and uncles were dead but never had he seen two people have such a strong immeadiate reaction. The woman had completely collapsed on to the chair and wrapped herself up into a ball, hiding from the world. And the father cried out, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Understandably. Do you have an estimate on time of death?" Grissom asked.

"Around noon"

"Alright, thanks" Sara said. Deciding there was nothing more he could tell them she left the room. Grissom grabbed the bag with her clothes neatly folded inside, gave Doc Robbins a wave and followed Sara out, and into the layout room.

"Let's see what's in her backpack" Sara said reaching for the bag. She pulled out two spiral notebooks, an umbrella and a CD player. Flipping through one of the notebooks she guessed that is was stories the girl had been writing. The other notebook got her more. It was a journal between Brittni and a friend. She flipped to the last entry, deciding to read the rest more thoroughly later.

"Well, this is interesting," she said out loud, raising an eyebrow.

"What?" Grissom looked up from the pants and shirt that were unfolded on the table.

"In here she's writing back and forth with her friend, Elizabeth Arden, and she mentions walking to the library 'after the test on Wednesday'. Sounds like the Vic wasn't alone on that bridge"

"Maybe she had help falling after all," Grissom said, "We should have Brass track her down" He said and got out the garbage he had collected from the river. He swabbed the can and bottle for DNA and put the other items aside in case they proved importance later.

They finished going over all the evidence and dropped the few hairs from her clothes and the swabs from the can and bottleoff at DNA and went in search of Brass, who they found walking quickly in the hallway.

"Hey," Sara said, "Slow down, we have something"

He stopped, "What is it?"

"We think that she was with her friend when she fell." Sara informed him.

"Does her friend have a name?"

She smiled. "As a matter of fact she does, Elizabeth Arden. Can you find her?"

"I'll try the school directory" He said and continued walking.

"Somebody's in a hurry," she said to Grissom.

They took a short break to have something to eat, and to pass time for their DNA analysis to get done.

They walked into DNA to find Greg, in his usual state, banging around the room with his headphones on. Sara walked in front of him and waved her hands in front of his face. He slid the headphones off and smiled at her.

"Greg did you finish with the hairs?" Grissom asked.

"Two of them weren't human, so I sent those ones Hodges way, and the others match the victim."

"Well that tells us nothing" Sara said. "But what about the swabs from the cans?" She said hopefully.

"The DNA from the soda can was so degraded I couldn't get anything from it, which means it's probably really old and meaningless to the case. However the DNA from the bottle matches your Vic."

"Alright thanks." Grissom said and followed Sara to Trace to find Hodges, thinking over possible scenarios in his head.

"Got anything on those hairs Hodges?" Sara said.

He lifted his head out of a microscope and said, "Finished those a while ago," he walked over to his desk and picked up a sheet of paper. "Feline. Specifically Siamese, which we can tell by the colors and cross-section." he gestured to a microscope across the room and they both took a look for themselves.

"Thanks a bunch." She said and took the paper from him. "Does the Vic have cats, by chance?" she asked Grissom once they were in the hallway.

"Don't know, it's a possibility." He said

Brass came up behind them and said "I got your friend, Elizabeth, in interrogation"

"That was quick." Sara said and turned around.

Brass simply smiled and led the way to interrogation.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Here goes the third chapter, I hope it feels believable.**

All three of them walked into interrogation one after another, all taking seats at the table.

"What's this about?" Elizabeth said.

"Your friend Brittni" Brass informed her.

"What about her? Is she in trouble?"

"You could say that. She died Wednesday afternoon."

The girl's eyes shot wide open, "What? How?"

"She fell. Were you with her on Wednesday?" Brass asked.

"Well, yeh. We had a test at the same time, so we were going to hang out." Elizabeth combed a hand through her light blonde hair.

"Going to, meaning you didn't meet up with her?"

"I saw her, but we never really went downtown."

Brass sensed she was holding something back. "Why exactly is that?"

"I don't know, okay!" She raised her voice in anger. "Look I just found out that my friend is dead, how do you expect me to digest that?"

Brass didn't know what to tell her so he just gave her a moment to calm down. "Were you with her on the bridge?" He knew that he was pushing her limits but he really needed some answers.

"Yes. Are you satisfied? Yes I was with her. And did I kill her? NO!" She clenched her jaw.

"Did you see her fall?" Grissom asked.

"I thought she was goofing around. She does that. Did that." she shook her head, unable to adapt to the tense change so quickly.

"So she fell of the bridge and what? You just kept walking?" Brass asked.

"Like I said, I thought she was messing with me. I didn't know she really fell." Her head dropped to the table and she whispered, "Can I go now?"

Sara looked to Brass for and answer. He nodded.

"Yeh" Sara said and got up to lead Elizabeth out.

"Think she did it?" Grissom asked once they were gone.

"What motive does she have?"

"Maybe we should ask around," Grissom suggested.

"I'll get a list of friends from the parents," Brass said getting up to leave.

Grissom remembered what Hodges told them about the cat hair and said, "Find out if she had a Siamese cat while you're at it."

"O-kay" he said and took off.

He glanced at his watch and realized that shift had ended an hour ago. He found Sara and told her that he was heading home, and he'd be there early next shift because the case was still relatively fresh.

* * *

As Promised, Grissom arrived early that night. He and Sara met upwith Brass and made a plan for today.

Brass had gotten a reasonably long list of friends that he was trying to bring in. Sara and Grissom decided that they were going to spend the day between sitting in on the interviews and going over the evidence they had.

"Okay, let us know when you have somebody," Grissom said to Brass before they split up.

"Will do" He said, then remembered something he had found out for Grissom yesterday and said, "Oh yeh, the Vic does have a Siamese cat."

"That's too bad. Oh well." He had been hoping this would be one of those cases where the animal hair would lead them somewhere, like to their killer.

"So what do we know?" Grissom said once he and Sara were back in the layout room.

"Well, we know she was with Elizabeth when she fell, but she claims that she thought Brittni was joking so she just walked away. If that's the truth she has no responsibility for the girl's death, but otherwise she's our main suspect," Sara talked it over with him.

"And, we also know that the fall killed her, so it still could be an accident" He always had to consider all possibilities.

"Yeh, true."

They continued combing over the evidence until Brass paged them, telling them he had a friend ready for them.

He was waiting for them outside of the interrogation room. "Her name's Emily Griffin, she knows Elizabeth and Brittni," he said.

Grissom followed Brass into the room, but Sara chose to go into the observation room. Emily was a small girl with long blonde hair, anxiously cracking her fingers, waiting to get this whole ordeal over with.

"You knew both of them. What would you say Brittni and Elizabeth's friendship was like?" Brassasked after he and Grissom sat down.

"They werepretty close, I guess. They were both obsessed with the same TV shows so they would always come in screaming about that, in a good way though."

"Did they ever fight about anything? Especially recently."

"They never fought," Emily said coldly. It hadn't taken her long to figure out what they were thinking about her friend.

"Did they hang out a lot?" Grissom wondered.

"All three of us were just at Liz's house last weekend, and they hung out after school some days," Emily replied.

"OK. Do you know any reason why Elizabeth would be mad at Brittni?" Brass asked. He often rephrased questions to get new information.

"Well," she thought for a moment, "I don't know if this is relative, but Brittni may have taken something from Liz when we were over there. She may have just been borrowing it but I don't know" She rambled on.

Brass didn't mind, he got a lot of useful information from people when they got nervous and rambled. "Do you know what it was?"

"It might have been her season, I'm not sure though I didn't really get a good look," the small girl was beginning to get very nervous.

"Her season of what?" Grissom said confused.

"One of her shows. I don't think that Liz would kill her over it but she would get mad, if she found out anyways."

"You've been a great help, thanks."

Brass got up and led her out.

Grissom walked into the observation room to talk to Sara. "Think Elizabeth killed her over her stealing her 'season'?"

"We've seen people kill for less," she said, "But honestly I don't know, there has to be more to it than that."

**Review!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: WOW! I finally posted the next (and last) chapter of this fic, it's a miracle. Well anyways, lotsof thanks to ForensicsFreak1988 for the last scene. Check out her stories, they rock. Again, I don't own a thing, what a shame.

* * *

**

"You paged us?" Sara asked Doc. Robbins as she and Grissom walked into the morgue.

"Yeh. Thought you two would like to see this," he said and led them over to Brittni Elann's body. He pulled back the sheet and directed their attention to her stomach. "Horizontal line bruise. Must have taken a day or two to appear, meaning that it had to have happened right before her death."

Sara and Grissom stared at the odd bruise right above the girl's belly button. "Thanks, doc," Grissom said, and walked out of the morgue.

Doc Robbins smiled and pulled the sheet back over the girl's body.

"What are you thinking?" Sara asked Grissom once she caught up with him.

"The bruising could suggest a struggle but what would leave that mark?" he wondered.

"Let's go back to the scene," Sara said.

On the way to the scene Sara found herself looking through the crime scene pictures again. Noting where the victim's belongings had scattered she tried to imagine the fall in her head. Flipping to a picture of the railing she showed it to Grissom and said, "Would this make the bruise? It's possible that she was thrown into it."

Grissom said nothing to her in reply but thought it out in his mind until he pulled the car over on the side of the road next to the bridge.

They both got out and walked over to the railing in question. Grissom, who was sidetracked going over all their evidence mentally, didn't see the raised sidewalk block and hit his foot on it. Stumbling off the sidewalk he caught himself on the railing.

"You okay?" Sara said from behind him, holding back a laugh.

"Yeh."

She couldn't help herself. Sara let out a small giggle then looked over at him. Her smile disappeared when she noticed where his hands were.

"Uh, Grissom?" She said, pointing.

"One problem," he said, knowing what she was thinking. "How did she end up all the way down there?" He gestured down the river.

"Good question. I just don't see how it was possible that she was pushed. Why would somebody wait until right here to push her? They walked from the school and there's this big stretch of riverbank with no railing, why wait?" Sara said as she put it together in her head.

"She wasn't pushed," Grissom concluded. "I think she may have been distracted by something."

She thought of all the items they had collected down near the river. "Was the cap on that bottle you collected?"

"No. You suppose that she was drinking it when she tripped?"

Sara said nothing but played the whole thing out in her head.

'_Brittni and Elizabeth walk out of the school, Elizabeth in front of Brittni, they head towards the bridge, talking and laughing. Brittni takes her juice out of her bag and takes a swallow, probably tipping her head up, therefore not being able to see the sidewalk. She stumbles off and hits the railing hard. Not able to catch her balance she flips over it and hits her head on the rocks below. Elizabeth thinks her friend is joking around and keeps walking, not having the slightest idea that her friend has just died.'

* * *

_

Elizabeth and Emily sat in the locker room, thoroughly exhausted, and pissed at their hockey coach after another practice of circles, agility drills, and half-ice scrimmages.

"God I really don't see why we can't just do full-ice. I hate being confined," Elizabeth complained, untying her Grafs.

"I know, really? I'm just glad he didn't make us do suicides. " Emily sympathized. Suddenly, Emily almost knocked herself over. Sitting up, she glared at Elizabeth who was laughing.

"Wow Emmy, you good?"

"Yeah," she said bitterly.

"You sure about that?" Elizabeth teased.

"Yeah, shut up. So what episode are we watching first tonight?" Emily asked. The girls were having a sleepover, and planned on watching CSI.

"Got me." Elizabeth said, as if it should make Emily laugh. It should have. "Can I get your hair brush?" Elizabeth added. She never remembered hers.

"Again?" teased Emily, handing it to her.

"Shh…" Elizabeth said smiling. Emily didn't get it. Having gotten all their equipment off and into their bags, they walked out of the locker room, going out to wait for Elizabeth's mom. Throwing her bag in the trunk once her mom showed up, Elizabeth almost knocked herself in as well.

"Oh, snap," she muttered. Elizabeth waited, but Emily didn't finish the quote. Finally she muttered, "Crackle, Pop. Bud-weis-er." Emily didn't get it. Brittni would have.

**THE END**

**A/N: Hockey lingo for the last scene:**

**Circles: **There are five larger face-off circles on the rink. Skating circles refers to a drill in which you, well, skate the larger face-off circles. Kinda like barrel racing on horses.

**Suicide drills: **Kinda like sprints in any dry-land sport, though A LOT more annoying. If you've seen Miracle, one word- Again. The bain of any hockey player's existence.

**Half-ice:** Pretty self-explanatory, the goals are set width-wise, instead of length-wise, on the ice.

**Grafs:** ForensicFreak1988's gorgeous skates.

REVIEW PLEASE.


End file.
